


Incompleteness in Absence

by notavodkashot



Series: Old Archive [15]
Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Angst, Awkward Conversations, Declarations Of Love, Drama & Romance, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Squalo is just a dickhead, Time Skips, Yamamoto is a cinnamon roll, original timeline, reality ensues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2019-01-04 11:21:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12167859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notavodkashot/pseuds/notavodkashot
Summary: A love story in two mornings after, seven years apart.





	Incompleteness in Absence

**Author's Note:**

> It's been requested that I pick up this series again, so here I am, uploading what was originally written in LJ so that all updates can go in the same place. Yay... (I am so sorry.)

 

 

**Incompleteness in Absence.**

  
  
  
I.  
  
_There are no fortunes to be told, although,_  
_Because I love you more than I can say,_  
_If I could tell you I would let you know._  
  
_The winds must come from somewhere when they blow,_  
_There must be reasons why the leaves decay;_  
_Time will say nothing but I told you so._  
  
_Perhaps the roses really want to grow,_  
_The vision seriously intends to stay;_  
_If I could tell you I would let you know._  
  
_Suppose all the lions get up and go,_  
_And all the brooks and soldiers run away;_  
_Will Time say nothing but I told you so?_  
_If I could tell you I would let you know._  
  
~ _"If I Could Tell You (But I can't)"_ , by W.H. Auden.

Fingers probed, tiptoeing on his skin like a thief at midnight, and roused him from rather pleasant, dreamless sleep.  
  
He knew whose fingers were those, hesitatingly, but oh so curiously tracing bumps and dips on his skin, following the austere curves of muscles and tripping equally over scars and hair every so often. Squalo remained as he was, lying on his side, half cradled in a warm body, whose owner seemed quite content to hold him close and scrutinize his back to the minute detail. He didn't allow his breathing to change, still deep and even as he slowly took consciousness of the world beyond the fingers playing on his spine. It was early, he knew, because he was a creature of scrupulously kept habits, and if he had to guess, he'd count an hour til sunrise still. The fingers kept moving, though they slowly stopped exploring and started petting, each caress long along his back, threading into his hair, and subtly inviting him closer, to rest his chin against the obnoxious collarbone in front of his eyes. Squalo didn't like it, jutting out of proportion with the rest of the body and breaking the harmony of a slight frame; those collarbones told him, whenever he saw them, that they were meant to match a broader body, echoing wide shoulders. Those collarbones told him, whenever he saw them, that he was a big, stupid fool, because their owner had miles and miles to grow yet and nothing he did or say would hold him back.  
  
Squalo leaned in to bury his nose into the small dip between them, sighing, and pretended he didn't care.  
  
Yamamoto chuckled under his breath and inhaled deeply, the scent of Squalo's hair and Squalo's bed and all those things Squalo would never, ever say. Yamamoto didn't care, because this was enough, he'd decided long ago. He'd always known what he wanted, and he'd always been taught that sacrifices came with everything he wanted. He didn't care if Squalo never said it, if he denied it and said exactly the opposite, because it wasn't words he wanted. He wanted hands on his skin, holding him down and keeping him tied to his bones. He wanted lips whispering hateful lies along his throat and teeth pressing barely hard enough to be felt. He wanted the purposeful, focused silence that pinned him down in bed, like a butterfly about to have its wings ripped off. He'd tear them off himself, if that was what it took, but in the end all that was lost was everything he'd built in a year of letters and calls and visits and beatings and fights. Yamamoto sank his fingers into Squalo's hair, grabbing fistfuls of it. It was thin and nearly translucent from up close, and it symbolized everything he wanted and would never get, because not even his life wouldn't be enough to pay for Squalo's hair.  
  
"I love you," he whispered, soft enough he flirted with the idea Squalo wouldn't hear, lips pressed against the crown of Squalo's head.  
  
"Shut up," Squalo growled back, and shifted himself up just enough so he could nuzzle the still red imprints of his teeth on Yamamoto's throat. They would fade before the day was over, and Squalo felt an urge to paint that damnable throat black and blue with his mouth, just so it'd last weeks instead. He didn't. "You don't even know what that means."  
  
Squalo would have wanted to believe, in that moment, that Yamamoto was just like every other sixteen year old boy in the world. Full of himself and his dreams and his own worth, pretending to understand the world and everything in it, with the wisdom of ignorance. But he wasn't, not always, and not when it really mattered, and that was why he was in Squalo's bed, languid and sated. Still, he  _was_  sixteen, and he glowed brilliantly, as if being seduced into Squalo's bed was the best thing that had ever happened to him. Squalo harbored the near-hysteric thought that Yamamoto was going to  _always_  look back to the night before, no matter when or where he was, and tried not to think if that was why he'd chosen to give in. He was a selfish creature by nature, he wanted and fought for what he wanted, and perhaps all he'd wanted, in the end, was to anchor himself deep inside that stupid, stupid boy's mind. To remain.  
  
"Do you?" Yamamoto asked, voice stabbing Squalo's conscience with another question he refused to answer:  _what have you_ done _now, you stupid fool?_ "Know what love is, I mean."  
  
He'd had the best sex in his life, with a sixteen year old boy, that was what he'd done. Squalo had only once had sex with a sixteen year old boy once before, but he'd been fourteen then. And back then, he'd made a vow and sold his soul with a careless grin, because he'd known what he'd wanted and he always got what he wanted. The vow came before the sex, though, and that was why Squalo remained at Xanxus' right even if he never went back into his bed. But Yamamoto didn't know that, nor he understood the complexities of the bond Squalo shared with his boss, under the convenient excuse of a promise and four feet of hair Squalo kept only because he'd come to like it.  
  
Squalo didn't know what sort of bond he'd forged with the slip of a brat that bested him in single combat and put a dent on his pride big enough for him to squeeze into his life. He didn't know where this was going, or what excuse he'd give himself, ten years from now, when he thought about the sunny grin he swore he hated.  
  
"Sex isn't love," he snorted, and then heaved, rolling onto his back and carrying the thinner - for now - frame with him. "You should know  _that_  much at least."  
  
Yamamoto laughed and sat straddling his hips, watching Squalo through half lidded eyes. He wondered, not really worried about it, if someone had noticed him leaving the crowded ball room after dinner, exactly ten minutes after Squalo did. If anyone had realized he'd spent half the night talking with Squalo's eyes, across the room, instead of paying attention to all the important people introduced to him during the party. He'd been carrying a glass of wine in his hand, the same one Gokudera had given him so he could toast to Tsuna's public recognition as the Ninth's successor, and which he'd never finished beyond the obligatory sip to convey his good will to his boss. He hadn't wanted to be drunk, if he had been reading Squalo's eyes right, and he  _really_  wouldn't have wanted to be drunk, if he'd been reading them wrong. Squalo hadn't toasted to Tsuna's health, even if he was supposed to be the Varia's representative in the party, and he'd walked out, amidst hushed whispers, when Gokudera started his speech. Yamamoto hadn't been deluding himself, and he thought that maybe, it would just be a matter of time too, before the Varia accepted Tsuna, just like Squalo had accepted him. Time and compromise, Yamamoto thought, were all that was needed to get what he wanted.  
  
He smiled, sweetly enough he couldn't hide how he really felt, and waited for his answer.  
  
"No," Squalo rolled his eyes, looking away from the blatant display, "but that's not the fucking point."  
  
The point was that Squalo was a fool, and more than a decade later, he still hadn't curbed the impulsiveness that would get him killed one day. He'd wanted to defeat Tyr, so he'd cut off his hand. He'd wanted to follow Xanxus, so he'd offered his hair. He'd wanted to see how far Yamamoto would let him go, so he'd laid him on his bed and crossed a line he hadn't even known was there. And always,  _always_ , he never even once stopped to wonder why. Because Tyr was honest to god the best man Squalo had ever met, and to surpass him was the highest achievement he could have hoped for. Because Xanxus had the will and the strength to back up his will, and Squalo was tired of feeling lost and not knowing where he was going. Because Yamamoto genuinely  _believed_  he loved him, and Squalo didn't even know why he cared to find out if it was actual love or not.  
  
"You're really quiet when you wake up," Yamamoto told him, chuckling again and rearranging his body to lie down on him. "I thought you'd be screaming and kicking me out already."  
  
"It's five in the fucking morning and Xanxus spent all of last night drinking himself stupid," Squalo shifted under his weight, getting comfortable with Yamamoto lounging on his chest. "Do I look retarded enough to wake him up?" Yamamoto's laugh grated on Squalo's nerves, if only because he was quickly realizing he didn't mind it at all. "Christ, you're a fucking nuisance."  
  
"I know," Yamamoto said, but omitted the contrite  _I'm sorry_ , Squalo had come to expect, if only because he really wasn't sorry at all.  
  
So Squalo kissed him, and procrastinated kicking him out of his bed and his life, until a convenient time.  
  


 

* * *

  
  
  
  
  
II.  
  
_They said:_  
_You can't live a lie,_  
_'Cause in the end we'll all meet up again_  
_And it'll be the same_  
_As it used to be._  
  
_Who are you fooling?_  
_We'll never see each other again._  
_Who are you fooling?_  
_We'll never be the together again._  
_Who are you fooling?_  
_We'll never be the same again._  
_And now that I realize,_  
_It was time that passed us by._  
  
_We said:_  
_Maybe it's just a phase,_  
_And the wind will carry it away in the morning._  
_But the wind never came._  
  
~ _"Time"_ , by Elan.

Sprawled in a careful arrangement of limbs, Squalo watched Yamamoto's reflection as he shaved. From that angle, he could see the play of muscles under skin and the remnants of the shower after the halfhearted attempt to towel himself dry. It was oddly fascinating, in how mundane it was. He supposed, now that he stopped to think about it, that since Yamamoto didn't wear a beard, he'd have to shave at least once in a while. He tried to imagine the other man - man, and not a boy, and what was Squalo doing in his bed again? - with a beard, but he couldn't. It was hard enough to fit the scar on his chin with the rest of his memories of him, with the  _idea_  of him.  
  
Those damnable collarbones - still red and bruised by Squalo's teeth - didn't look out of synch with the rest of his frame anymore.  
  
"It's the big game," Yamamoto said, breaking the idyllic silence that had reigned between them, since they woke up tangled into each other. Squalo wondered if the near flawless Italian was meant to be a cue for him, and if so, for what. "Tonight."  
  
Squalo wondered, too, what had possessed him to cross the entire city and go ring the doorbell - disgustingly cheerful - to Yamamoto's apartment. He'd done what he had to do, as he always did, even when he hated it. He'd let Yamamoto walk out of his room and his life when he was sixteen, still drunken in his delusions of true love. He had sex with him, sometimes, when they were both in Italy or in Japan, and even wrote back, once or twice, letters dripping with malice and violent attention that was not even remotely related to affection. In the beginning, Squalo remembered, the letters came every week. Tediously long, about things he couldn't care less about, like baseball and school and his friends and sushi, but at least not saccharine. Gradually, they had slowed down and Squalo had been rather glad to find his mail less and less cluttered with random snippets of a life not his own. His own replies were always succinct and to the point, answering the rare question he found worth his time, and mostly just barely conveying the status quo: he still lived, and he still served Xanxus. And all was good in the world.  
  
The letters stopped coming two months after the last time they had had sex, in Verona, and six months before Yamamoto moved to America.  
  
And then, funnily enough, the roles were reversed. Squalo didn't write letters, because he was useless with words, unless they were meant to hurt. Instead, Squalo bought Lussuria a camera and traveled the world, killing worthy opponents Yamamoto would never get the chance to fight against. He sent the videos bare, just a disc wrapped in cheap, brown paper with the same return address all his letters had ever had. Yamamoto never wrote him more than a page in reply, always in English, but at least he never sent the videos back, either. It was his own, new version of status quo: he still lived, and he still played baseball. And all was wrong in the world.  
  
It was probably his fault, Squalo thought, that Yamamoto had ended the way he did. Except he didn't care, because he'd just cared to prove he was right, and it wasn't love. Sixteen was too young and too stupid to even know what love was. Squalo was thirty-one, expecting to die any day now, and all he knew was that love wasn't tender love making and the insipid life of a sixteen year old in blue ink. He didn't know what love was, but it was easier to figure out what it wasn't. It wasn't Xanxus and his all-consuming will, and it wasn't Yamamoto and his naively earnest affection. Love was probably what he felt for the sword and the hunt, what made his breath catch and his heart speed up.  
  
Love wasn't the soulless feeling crawling under his skin, trying in vain to become guilt and grief.  
  
"I still don't give two shits about your stupid game," he snorted, closing his eyes so he didn't read any more confusing hints in Yamamoto's expression. "I was just in town."  
  
Yamamoto rinsed his face and looked at the mirror. He saw guilt and disappointment, aimlessly floating behind his eyes, staring him down and asking where his compromise had gone to, after he'd wasted all the time in the world. Where the warmth had run off to, slipping between his fingers like sand. Squalo hadn't changed, hadn't turned into a horrible monster overnight. The sex was the same it had always been: playful, lazy, slow. But the passion and the thrill were gone. Maybe because Squalo had given in, and Yamamoto realized there was not going to be a last time. And without the fear of losing it, his love wilted away, fading into something bland and asphyxiating. Something he'd rather run away from, than live with.  
  
Maybe, Yamamoto thought, walking out of the bathroom and watching Squalo stretch under a ray of sunlight creeping between the curtains, Squalo had been right all along. Maybe it hadn't been love after all. Sixteen was too young to know what love was. Sixteen hadn't killed a man yet or thrown the guilt away. Yamamoto was twenty-three now, as old as Squalo had been, then, and he was just realizing he didn't know what love was. He knew it wasn't the sated, gentle warmth of sex, or Squalo's pensive air as they laid in bed, thinking in silence or talking about nothing. Love had to be something vibrant, like what he'd felt before. Like the excitement of a full stadium cheering him on or the thrill of hitting a ball and sending it soaring into the stands. But a vague description wasn't enough, Yamamoto wanted to know  _where_  it was. He needed to find it for himself.  
  
"And you wanted to get laid?" Yamamoto asked quietly, distinct layers in his tone.  
  
Squalo rolled onto his side, one arm folded under his head. He shrugged, looking at Yamamoto in the eye.  
  
"Yeah."   
  
Yamamoto stared at him for a long moment, resenting the twitch in his gut as he realized Squalo  _fit_  in his bed, as if he  _belonged_  there. As if he were there, every morning, giving him flippant answers that had long stopped hurting, if they ever even did in the first place. He wondered if maybe his new found habit to watch at least one of those discs before going to bed was to blame for that; he was used to the sound of the Italian screeching murder in his bedroom. The real thing didn't vary much from the recordings of him at his best.  
  
"You're kind of an asshole, Squalo," Yamamoto said, lips quirking into a wry smile, "did you know?"  
  
"VOOOII," Squalo laughed, closing his eyes, "been telling you for  _years_."  
  
Yamamoto sat on the edge of the bed, nearly touching him. He studied Squalo's profile as he waited for him to open his eyes, wondering, absently, how Squalo would look like without all that hair getting everywhere. It was beautiful hair, well cared for; really nice to comb with his fingers, and pretty much Squalo himself in a nutshell. When he was younger, Yamamoto had been fascinated with it, going as far as to ask permission to brush it, though he was usually turned down. Now he found it had lost its appeal, if nothing else because it was so much a part of Squalo, Yamamoto couldn't see it as something separate from the whole.  
  
"What if--" Yamamoto swallowed hard, feeling Squalo's eyes freezing him in place. "What if I wanted to go back with you?"  
  
Squalo sat up, folding his legs out of the way until he was nearly nose to nose with Yamamoto. He wondered, cynically, if sex was all that was needed to sway Yamamoto back to the right road. But, even he knew the thought was needlessly callous. He reached a hand, sliding his fingers against short, black hair, and dragged it down along Yamamoto's face, ignoring the way he leaned in on the touch. He gripped his chin, thumb idly caressing the scar he hadn't left there.  
  
"There's a big game," Squalo said quietly, squinting to find that silly, romantic fool of a boy that boldly proclaimed his love for him, "tonight."  
  
"I know," Yamamoto said, "they'll manage without me." But no  _I'm sorry_ , because he really wasn't.  
  
So Squalo kissed him, and procrastinated welcoming him back his life, proper, until he had welcomed him back to his bed, in a bed that wasn't even his own.  
  


 

 

_That is what I imagine love to be: incompleteness in absence._  
~Edmond de Goncourt.

**Author's Note:**

> [Originally written in November 2009.]


End file.
